No, YOU Suck It
by copyallcatsandacrobats
Summary: While trying to protect Shawn from a vampire attack, Lassiter is forced to ingest vampire blood; fortunately, Sam may have read about a possible cure. Also, Dean is outed by his dead father (which wasn't news), and Juliet is a BAMF (also not news). (First chapter only—the entire fic can be found on AO3 under the same author/title.) Shawn/Lassiter (and Dean/Cas at the end).


**Notes**: Most of this takes place in the summer after season one for Psych, and just after 3x01 "The Magnificent Seven" for Supernatural. **This is not the whole story.**__The **whole fic** can be found on** AO3 (/works/1366021/chapters/2854105). **

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**JUNE 2007**

Sam leaned out of the window of the car so that he could get his brother's attention without shouting, his eyes still on his phone. "Dude, case," he said.

Dean had been leaning against the side of the Impala, checking out the girl walking into the convenience store and thinking of nothing much except what kind of underwear she might, or might not, have on. He left the pump on automatic and leaned against the hood instead. "Yeah, what? More demon dicks? 'Cause I gotta say, Sammy, I've kind of already got my quota this week."

"No, not demons—check this out," he said, holding up the phone but not handing it over. "There have been five missing persons in the last _month_ in Santa Barbara, three found dead—one mauled beyond all recognition and two with their heads ripped off_—_and two still missing. What's that sound like to you?"

Dean had on his disgusted face, and made a disgusted sound to go along with it. "Vamps, ugh. Well, I really am sick of this scene—we hauling ass for sunny California? Bet you can't wait to tread your old stomping ground again."

Sam gave him a look. "Santa Barbara is like, five hours from Stanford. And if we're going to work a case, let's just work the case, okay?"

"Hey, fine by me." Dean returned the pump when it clicked off, and he grinned as he went inside to pay and passed that hot girl as she was coming out, wondering how close Santa Barbara was to the beach.

.

"Eww," Shawn said. Gus didn't reply—he was too busying trying not to gag. "Stay with me, buddy," Shawn said absently, and flipped the crime scene photo over to reveal the next one. The first few had been of the general scenes, and a few of the evidence markers showing blood spatters, tire tracks, foot prints, and a cigarette butt, but the one after that had been someone who apparently missed the last 'head's up!' This next one was of a gruesomely mangled body, one arm torn off at the elbow and a gash in the torso big enough to cradle a baby dinosaur in, and Gus was off, nearly knocking Lassiter over as he marched into the room they'd been using for evidence gathering. Shawn was almost glad when the folder was ripped out of his hands—or he would have been, if not for his shredded fingers.

"Yiiikes, paper cuts!" he admonished, flapping his hands and hopping from foot to foot, because that was just what you did when something went ouchy. "Did your mother ever teach you to say please?"

"Did your mother ever have any kids that lived?" Lassiter shot back.

Shawn stopped bouncing to examine his palms, which weren't bleeding, but did sting a little. "I'm alive," he said. "I feel _so _alive. Looking at crime scene photos just makes me love my own life that much more. I feel like singing." He dropped into a low, melodious tone. "Twinkle, twinkle, little star, Lassy's case is not that far. Who will murder someone next? Could it be that one girl's ex? Now I'm gonna solve that crime, because you're running out of time."

Lassiter had stopped in the middle of piling up the rest of the photos to glare at him, and now he slowly pointed toward the exit. "Out."

"You didn't like my serenade? I do have another one, exquisitely titled, 'Lassy's Classy Chassis'." Shawn opened his mouth to launch into a parody of 'Jessie's Girl', but he changed track and stepped out into the hall just as Lassiter made a grab for his shoulder to throw him out. "I bet you don't like Weird Al, either!" Shawn called, and Lassiter slammed the door in his face. "A rude, crude, and unsubdued dude," he told an officer heading for the holding cell, and then he turned around to find himself face-to-face with Gus, whose face looked slightly ashy. Shawn considered him, and Gus began to look suspicious.

"Shawn..."

"Smegma sandwiches," Shawn said mildly, and Gus spun around so fast he almost did a 360 to propel himself back toward the restroom. Shawn snickered and sauntered back toward the exit to wait for his friend, who still had the car keys, so that they could get tacos on the way back to the Psych office and begin trying to figure out who—or what—had wreaked such staggering havoc on the incredibly unfortunate women in the crime scene photos.

.

Dean gave a cool look to the long drink of water who looked like he ate a bushel of lemons every morning and liked it. "It happens sometimes," he said. "The FBI has a lot going on, sometimes communication gets interrupted for one reason or another. We're glad to work with you on this, but we are going to need that case file."

"I just don't see why I was failed to be informed that you were coming," Detective Lassiter said again, his almost non-existent lips practically disappearing. "Chief Vick put in this request, you said?"

"He sure did, Detective," Sam said mildly. "We're only here to help put a stop to these murders, not to step on your toes."

Lassiter's partner, a young blonde with a Barbie doll face, suddenly gave Sam a scrutinizing look that he noticed, and he glanced at Dean for help, realizing he'd said something wrong and she was considering whether or not to procedure them to death. "Chief Vick is a woman," she said.

"My apologies," Sam said, meaning it. "We only got a first initial."

Detective O'Hara smiled. "Jay?"

"No ma'am, we have a K. Vick on our paperwork," Dean said, ostentatiously opening a folder and frowning at it. "Though that may be a typo. If you'd like to call our superior—" The card with Bobby's phone number appeared between his fingers.

"O'Hara, get someone to run them off some copies," Lassiter said, still giving Sam and Dean a measuring look. He suddenly reached out and plucked the card from Dean's hand. "While I double-check on this. Procedure."

"Of course." O'Hara turned on her heel, the case file in her hands, while Lassiter strode to a desk and picked up a phone.

"Should we blow, ya think?" Sam murmured. It wasn't just his slip—apparently these two actually had good cop instincts for liars, or people posing as those they weren't.

"Not yet." Dean was scanning the room. "The Head Detective thinks he's a little more important than he is—he won't try calling the chief on vacation unless Bobby pings him weird. Let's see if we can just get the file, then blow."

They watched Lassiter glance repeatedly at the card in his hand, frowning, and then speak into the phone. He looked at Sam and Dean suspiciously as he listened, and they gave him their best bland looks back. He seemed supremely annoyed at something, and then he hung up, coming back over to them just as Detective O'Hara took a file folder from a clerk and joined them. "They check out," he said almost reluctantly, and when Sam started to reach for the card, Lassiter put it into his pocket. "I'll just hang onto this for the duration of your assistance, unless that's a problem."

"Not at all," Sam said.

"Lots of extras," Dean added. He almost winked at O'Hara, but he had a feeling that she would give him a sweet smile in return, and then destroy him. That sounded hot, actually.

"Here we go, gentlemen," she said. "This is everything we have officially. If you'd like to come down to our briefing room, we can go through it together. These murders are just awful, unlike anything we've seen in this area before." She took a step closer and gestured down the hall, and when Dean followed her gaze, starting to say that they would get a hold of the PD the second they had anything, Lassiter also stepped forward, necessitating Sam to take a step back.

"If you'll follow Detective O'Hara," he said.

"Of course," Sam said—they kind of had to, if they wanted those crime scene photos and the information on the victims, since she hadn't actually handed them over yet. While she led the way and Dean stared at her ass, Sam tried to catch his brother's eye, to see if he thought they were actually on to them, or if they, particularly Lassiter, just wanted to make sure they had the upper hand. Dean was too mesmerized, though, and Sam rolled his eyes before almost running directly into O'Hara's well-shaped back.

"Shawn, Gus," she said, clearly surprised. "What are you two doing here?"

"Spencer!" Lassiter pushed between Sam and Dean, giving them a chance to gauge each other's ideas about their situation while he yelled at someone already in the room. "That's the last time!" he was saying. "You are _not _on the case, nor will you _ever _be on this case. Now get. Out."

"But Lassy, look, I really think you should check into—"

"Lassy," Dean murmured, an amused look on his face. "Where'd Timmy go?"

"Maybe we should go now?" Sam said, glancing around.

Too late—O'Hara was stepping aside and motioning them in. "These are the agents assigned to help us on this case—Agents Daltrey and Townshend," she said.

One of the two guys in the room, the one in the Ratt t-shirt and flannel, glanced up. "The who?"

"Pete Daltrey and Roger Townshend," Sam said. "And you are...?"

The kid glanced at the room's other occupant and snorted. "I'm the legendary John Moon, and this is my partner, Keith Entwistle. Take the magic bus and whistle us up some Ents, Keith."

Both of the SBPD's detectives didn't seem to take this as strange, nor did the black guy in the non-ratty clothes, but Dean narrowed his eyes slightly and cracked his knuckles, his signal to Sam that they needed to vamoose asap.

"These two are occasional consultants for our department," Detective O'Hara said.

"Not occasional enough," Lassiter said, glaring at the one he'd called Spencer.

"Lassy's just being sassy because no one's giving his assy a passy," Spencer said breezily, and then suddenly he gave Sam and Dean a piercing look, one that put both of them on edge. "Hi, Shawn Spencer," he said, his eyes flicking once up and down Dean, and then up and down Sam. "Psychic detective."

Oh, that explained it. Sam relaxed and shook his hand, and Dean rolled his eyes and did the same. Not that almost all police departments would immediately believe there were such things as psychics—or vampires, or werewolves, or demons, or any of them—but if he was hired by them, even occasionally, he was more likely to have actual psychic tendencies. Dean was done to death about psychics in general, however, and it was clear to him that Detective Lemon Patch was as well.

"Psychic, huh?" Sam said, carefully watching the way his eyes darted around. "What kind?"

"I tend to use my powers for good more than for evil," Spencer said, shrugging.

"Don't we all," Dean muttered.

"Right," Sam said. "I mean—do you have visions, or can you communicate with the dead, or do you get vibrations of the past or future? Do you have any telepathic talent?" He saw Lassiter roll his eyes out of the corner of his eye, but what interested him more was Spencer's sudden glance at his partner, and then at the blonde detective.

"Yeah, all that and a bag of chips," he said. "Jules, a minute?"

"Shawn, we're in the middle of—"

"Pretty please, with you on top?"

"Shut your mouth and get out of here, Spencer," Lassiter snapped.

"We'll have her back in mint condition," Spencer promised, and motioned to his partner. "C'mon Gus, we have to see if Jules wants to come over later and watch that episode of Friends when Monica and Rachel pretend to be each other." He bounced his eyebrows at O'Hara. "George Clooney from E.R. is in that one, hubba hubba. Don't you love a good crossover episode?"

O'Hara frowned a little, and then she opened the door and led them into the hall. "I really don't have time to—" she began, and Spencer reached forward to pull the door shut.

Dean looked after them for a second, then he glanced at Sam (_Definitely need to skedaddle, Sammy, _his eyes said) and then he addressed Lassiter. "So _he's_ gay, huh?" he asked, nodding toward the window in the door.

"What?" Lassiter looked up from the folder, confused, then glanced at the three in the hall. "Spencer?" He shrugged. "Don't know, don't care."

The door opened. "Detective Lassiter, could I borrow you for a minute?" O'Hara asked, smiling. He frowned slightly but set the folder down and squeezed past her into the hall, and she widened her grin at Sam and Dean. "It'll be just a second, we need to consult with our..." She tilted her head toward Spencer, who had leaned far too close to Lassiter and began murmuring to him, with many hand gestures.

"Consultants?" Sam suggested.

"Just a second," she promised, and closed the door.

"Goddamn psychics," Dean muttered. "You think he knows about the vampires?"

"He knows something. Get the folder," Sam said, and got out his phone to call Bobby for Emergency Distraction #11 while Dean blocked the view to the window with his body and grabbed the pictures out of the folder, switching them with a nearby stack of fliers.

.

"But I talked to their supervisor," Lassiter was saying, annoyed. "I keep up on all of the latest passcodes, and he knew all of the right calls and answers."

"Yeah, and little lambs eat ivy," Shawn said. "Jules, I know what I'm talking about. Those two are faker than—"

"Than you?" Lassiter said, clearly trying not to throw his arms in the air.

Shawn glanced at the window again, then he did a double-take, looked incredulous, and tilted his head toward the room. "Lassy, the one with the awesome hair just said something about vampires, and they're serious."

Gus gasped. "Vampires? I knew it!"

"There are no vampires, Gus," Shawn said, too actually freaked out by how serious the taller one had looked when he'd asked about psychic powers to tease him. "But I swear, those two aren't FBI, and I think _they _think there really are vampires. I'm telling you Lassy, go frisk them!"

"I have no probable cause to—"

"How do you know they're talking about vampires?" Juliet broke in. "I can't hear anything."

Shawn had read his lips quite easily—it was a fairly distinguishable word, plus he'd been thinking it himself off an on for the past two days, though never as seriously as the grave expressions on the 'agents' faces. He closed his eyes and touched his forehead, throwing out an arm, fairly certain he was going to either punch Lassy in the stomach, or have his arm knocked away. Lassiter must not have been paying attention, so he actually ended up getting a pretty good smack in the solar plexus. "Right there," Shawn said. "The center of the being, where the soul lives—nothing. It's so cold, and so dark. The sunlight burns us." He managed to stop just before adding, 'Precious'. "Oh Mary—I need Mary—"

"Mary's little lamb?" Lassiter asked, rubbing his chest and glaring.

"No, she's intoxicating, and all red—"

"A bloody Mary?" Gus suggested.

Shawn clapped him on the shoulder. "Yes, it's bloody! No celery, though—gross, wabbit food. I also see something long and sharp—my wit! No, this is even sharper, meant to cut, to slice—oh, Gus, it hurts! It's metal!" He felt for the top of Gus's head, and just managed to set his hand on top of it when Gus ducked away and knocked his arm off. "Not just a hat rack, off with his head!" he said, then fell against the wall and opened his eyes, hoping to see Juliet's wide, awed eyes—instead, he saw the two FBI imposters staring at him from inside the room. Oops.

"Are you trying to tell us that you're the queen?" Lassiter asked dryly.

Shawn dropped his arms to his sides in exasperation. "No, you nimrod, I'm saying—" He paused to slide an arm around Juliet's shoulders, putting his back to the room so they couldn't read _his _lips, if they could. "—those two are impersonating FBI agents, and they're dangerous. They have huge knives." He dropped his voice, making Gus and both detectives unconsciously lean closer to him. "They might even be the murderers," he said, although he was fairly sure they weren't. One K.I.T.T. short of a Knight Rider, definitely, but _probably _not murderers.

"They're not," Lassiter said. "I would have seen that."

"If staking doesn't work, the only other way of killing a vampire is to cut off its head," Gus said, his eyes wide. "Uhh—Lassy, you're catholic, right? You have a crucifix I can borrow, just for a little while? Like, until I get to my supply of holy water?"

"I'm not and I don't," Lassiter said tiredly. "And even if I did, you'd be the second to last person on earth I'd give it to."

"I thought you went to an all-boys catholic high school?" Shawn said, and then affected a surprisingly good Irish accent. "Ye poor, poor Lass. Come tell Father Shawn all about the lonli—"

"You probably couldn't even enter a church without bursting into flames!" Lassiter said.

Juliet put her hands up. "Boys! Can we please—"

"Detective Lassiter?" They all looked up to see Buzz peeking around the corner, looking worried. "There's a Supervisory Special Agent Slobe—Slobesyer on line one for you, priority _one_."

"What?" Lassiter started walking immediately. "O'Hara, I may need you."

"Juliet, do you happen to have a cru—" Gus began.

"Yes, in my desk." Juliet sighed and began walking. "It was my grandmother's, so if I don't get it back, Gus, god help you."

"Guys!" Shawn protested again, trying to pull at Gus's elbow. His best friend also paid him no mind, which was extremely irritating when he knew for a fact that he was right.

"Hello, this is Detective Carlton Lassiter. Hello? Helllllooo?" Lassy frowned at the phone and looked for the blinking light that showed the caller was still on hold and not cut off while Juliet sat down in her swivel chair and opened her top drawer. "Agent Slobesyer? Hello, are you there?"

Shawn turned around, deciding to keep an eye on the imposters himself, if he had to, and was just in time to see the back end of a floppy-haired moose go around the corner downstairs, followed by a grinning jackass with not-actually-that-awesome hair. 'Agent Daltrey' saw Shawn looking and starting to open his mouth, and he touched his forehead exaggeratedly before mouthing something and exiting.

_Bye, losers._

"Son of a bitch," Shawn said softly.

.

"Some psychic," Dean said, flooring his baby. "He's almost as bad as you."

Sam looked up from the photos of the mutilated bodies and glared. "Screw you, jerk," he said. "I don't know how his works, but you know mine came and went. He was good enough to catch us almost immediately—we're lucky to even have these."

Dean waved him off. "Don't need 'em. If there's a nest around here, we'll find it using what Dad taught us."

"Which will go a lot faster when we know what the police know, like when and where they're choosing their victims." Sam frowned at a closeup of one of the decapitated women. "Hey, I wonder if there are any other hunters around here. Look at how clean this one is—no one ripped her head off, this was a precise kill."

"Maybe," Dean allowed. "So long as it's not Gordon." He shuddered. "My whackadoo tolerance is extremely low at the moment."

"He's still in prison," Sam mused, going through the detectives' notes on the timelines of the victim's last-known whereabouts.

"Well, why don't you call Bobby, see if he knows if anyone's already got this covered or if we're crashing. I need out of this monkey suit before I go bananas."

Sam got out his phone and dialed again as Dean headed toward the motel room they'd paid cash for early this morning. "Hey Bobby," he greeted. "Thanks."

"You better be thankful," Bobby said. "That dipstick I had to talk to has a whole game of Pick-Up Sticks up his ass."

"Lassiter? Yeah, he was worse in person. Listen, I don't know if he said, but we're in Santa Barbara, looks like maybe there's a vamp nest around. We snagged the crime scene pics, and there are two vics that were decapitated, looks like those might have been hunters. You heard anything?"

"Nope, but that don't mean nothin'—I don't exactly subscribe to the daily newsletter." Bobby paused. "I do know two hunters based in California though, think they're more toward Frisco. 'Spose I could call 'em, see if they heard anything."

"Thanks, Bobby. Oh, one more thing." Sam glanced at Dean, who rolled his eyes back, already knowing what he was going to ask. "You ever heard of a psychic called Shawn Spencer?"

"What am I, your only connection to the whole world?" Bobby grumbled. "Is he really psychic?"

"I don't know," Sam said, frowning. "He picked us out as fakes just about instantly, and he knew we were carrying machetes, even though we didn't have them with us at the time."

"I still have my loop on," Dean said. "He probably saw it under my belt and put it together with the vic pics—he was looking at them when we followed Detectives Barbie and Sour Patch Kid in."

"And knew what it was for?" Sam raised his eyebrows. Dean shrugged and found a parking space, deciding Sam didn't need to know he did have a large knife strapped to the inside of his jacket, just in case.

"Never heard of a Spencer," Bobby said. "But again, that don't mean nothin'. If he's working with the police, you boys be on your guard double."

Sam sighed. "Okay, thanks Bobby. Let us know if you do find out we're not the only exterminators in town. No need to crash someone else's raid and end up getting killed ourselves." He flipped his phone closed and followed his brother into the motel room to change and do some internet searching.

.

Contrary to what his father, his best friend, and SPBD's head detective frequently claimed, Shawn didn't like it when things came too easily. It wasn't about his audience and his dramatic reveals, it wasn't about the recognition, and it wasn't even about that 'aha!' moment that he did, admittedly, love so much he could mainline it for days. Mostly, it was because of that old axiom: If it seems too good to be true... God knew he'd gone head-to-head with that truth time and time again, only to get his ass kicked unfailingly. Forty-seventh time was the charm, and now his first instinct was to be suspicious instead of gleeful when something clicked so quickly.

"This can't be right," he told the map he was drawing on.

Gus glanced down as he walked by. "You're right," he said. "I don't think vampires are Wiccan."

"Don't tell vampires how to live their deaths, Gus." Shawn looked up, and then choked as his nostrils were assaulted by garlic. "What the hell?" he demanded. "You're not serious, man. You smell like pizza and feet."

Gus shrugged and crammed another piece of gloopy garlic bread into his face. "I'm being safe, Shawn. If vampires are allergic to my blood, none of them will even want to bite me."

"I don't think your blood can get garlicky. Great, now the whole office smells like syphilitic squirrels got into the garlic press." Shawn waved at the cloud surrounding him while Gus shrugged again and nodded to the map, trying to say something and raining rank crumbs. "Stop, for the love of Buffy! Go drink some of your holy water, sheesh."

Once Gus had ditched the remainder of his snack and gulped half a twenty-ounce bottle of what looked to Shawn like plain old Aquafina, he continued. "I don't think they're Wiccan either," he said, tracing the lines of the star connecting each of the five points of the victims' abductions. "But, you know, this symbol has all sorts of meaning, tracing back thousands of years. It can be good or bad, depending on what else you're doing with it, and which way the middle point goes, up or down." He touched it on the map, where it pointed down.

"You're forgetting I dated a Wiccan for a whole week," Gus said. "I know all this. Did you also know it's the symbol for the Seal of Solomon?"

Shawn frowned. "I personally don't think anyone threatening to cut a baby in half deserves a gold star, but them's the dark ages, I guess."

"King Solomon had a good reason for that, that's why it's called the _Wisdom_ of Solomon."

Shawn shrugged. "Whatever, half a baby is probably more messy, but less loud, than a whole baby."

"That's messed up, Shawn," Gus said gravely. "And it's not a gold star, it's used for—" Gus suddenly stopped, his hand over his mouth.

"Rummikub?" Shawn wasn't entirely sure what that was, only that he liked saying it. A roomy cube sounded like a great place to chill.

"For summoning and commanding demons," Gus said reluctantly, watching Shawn carefully.

"Demons," he said, and then his eyes widened. "Oh, shit! What if it's not vampires—well, we know it wasn't in the first place, but you know what I mean, what if it's not someone thinking they are—but it's, like, sacrifices? That makes sense, if they think they're, I dunno, conjuring a spell?"

"You don't conjure a spell," Gus said. "You'd use a spell to conjure something."

"I broke your salt line," Shawn said, pointing toward the office's back door. "We're going to get snails."

Gus jumped to his feet. "You didn't! Shawn!"

"Demonic snails," he added, and then snorted when Gus sprinted for the door and the can of Morton. He looked at the map again, and then he realized what was in the center of that star. "Buddy!" he called, sweeping the maps and the crumpled sheets of Lassy's notes he'd swiped from the case folder into his arms. "Just use pepper, it'll make 'em sneeze like the Devil! Hurry up, Gus, someone's going to literally die because of your salt overdose! I know where it's going to happen next!"

.

Sam stared at his map of Santa Barbara, where he'd started marking off places victims had either been abducted or found. On a whim, he'd connected the dots, and now he sighed, not sure why he was surprised. "Uh, Dean..."

Dean glanced over, his cheeks crammed with Chester's best, and he almost choked. "No!" he said. "I said I was done with demons this week! Why do vampires need a Devil's Trap?! Pets? Human juice just ain't cutting it anymore?"

"Maybe it's not vampires after all?" Sam suggested. "Look what's in the middle: Magic Circle Storage Warehouse. Why are people even allowed to name warehouses things like that?" He looked outside and saw it was just getting dark, and he stood up to begin strapping up his weapons and protections. Dean threw his bag of cheese puffs onto his bed and started getting ready himself.

.

Lassiter was just securing the latches on his briefcase and getting ready to go home when O'Hara popped to her feet at her desk, her eyes wide. She slammed a hand on top of the handle before he could reach for it, and when he looked up to tell her to get her mitts off, the look in her eyes, her 'Go' face, told him he wasn't going anywhere except with her.

"What is it?" he asked.

"It's Shawn," she said. "He says he knows where someone else is going to go missing, possibly to be murdered. He and Gus are already on their way. It's called—what?" she said into the phone, and grabbed for a pad of paper. Lassiter had a pen held out before she could scramble for one. She flashed him a quick smile in thanks, and scribbled quickly: _Magic Circle, sacrifices? 6__th__ month 6__th__ victim 6__th__ full moon of year._ Lassiter was briefly mystified at this, until he recognized the name of a warehouse, and remembered that only three of the five missing persons had been found, none of them alive.

"Tell Spencer to stay put," he ordered. "O'Hara, you and I will check this out and see if it warrants any backup, _not _including them."

She nodded and started the relay the message before trailing off, listening, and then rolling her eyes. "We'll be right there. Do _not _go inside," she said, and hung up. "They're already there," she told her partner.

Lassiter rolled his eyes and turned, walking quickly toward the door. "Of course they are. At least they _bothered _to call us this time. What were your notes? I recognize the Magic Circle Warehouse—stupid name—but the three sixes... oh, for the love of God."

"Hopefully," O'Hara agreed.

.

"Much like the British, Lassy and Jules are coming," Shawn told Gus, pocketing his phone. They were parked across the street from the Magic Circle, and he couldn't see much of anything.

"I don't hear anything," Gus said, craning his neck to gain that crucial inch and a half.

Shawn unbuckled his seat belt. "C'mon."

"No!" Gus grabbed his arm so hard Shawn yelped.

"Ow! Let me go, your nails are weirdly nice, and sharp!"

"Shhh!" Gus looked actually scared, so Shawn shut up, though he pried his fingers off and examined his forearm for blood. "The vampires and demons might hear you," Gus whispered.

"If there really are vampires, they already know we're here," Shawn said reasonably. "They'll have heard the car, and they can probably smell us, or hear our heartbeats. That and you just freaking clawed me."

"I'm sorry Shawn, I'm so sorry if they get you, I promise I'll be the good friend that stakes you quickly, so it doesn't hurt, and I'll even be the one that tells your dad you went down in a blazy of glory like he always wanted—"

"Oh my god!" Shawn hissed, torn between hysterical laughter at the idea of Gus explaining to Henry that he put a motherfucking _stake _through his son's heart because he was _on the vein_ in an entirely new and interesting way, and exasperation that Gus couldn't just deal with the fact that some people—some perfectly human people—were just kakka for cuckoo puffs. Though, to be fair, Gus had a point in not wanting to be the next human sacrifice, no matter what sort of being the murderers were. "I just want to walk around the block," Shawn said softly. "There's lots of lights over there. I want to see if there's a car or anything." He also wanted to see if there was a way to sneak in through the fence without going over it, but Gus was a spur-of-the-moment sort if ever there was one.

"They'll get us!" Gus squeaked.

Shawn grinned—Gus had said "us", like he always did. No matter what asinine thing Shawn wanted to do, his best friend was right there behind him. He held up something he'd gotten from one of the drawers of his desk in the office. "The power of Christ is totally imbibed in this, buddy," he said solemnly.

Gus stopped quaking long enough to give him his most incredulous look yet. "Shawn," he said slowly. "Have you been saving that from Easter?"

He considered the chocolate crucifix. Wasn't it more Jesusy if it had a bunny on it? "Not saving it, exactly. Really, I forgot it was there. But it's a cross, isn't it? And hey, if it's from Easter, it's probably more religious." He reached for his car door and looked back, his best charming smile on. "And if they do come for us, we'll have a great snack in our last minutes. I'm pretty sure this is filled with peanut butter."

.

"No EMF," Dean said doubtfully, glaring at the warehouse before checking his meter again. "Nope, not even a twitch. You checked for omens?"

"Nada," Sam confirmed. The sky was dark but clear, none of the streetlamps were flickering... there wasn't a lot of cattle around Santa Barbara, but the most recent rainstorms hadn't even been accompanied by lightning. The only things out of the ordinary in this town were the missing and the mutilated. "Should we go in and check around, you think?"

"Son of a bitch," Dean said softly, and when Sam followed his gaze, he felt an urge to do something he hadn't done in all of his years hunting—to rub his eyes in disbelief. "You check up on that little shit?" Dean asked, narrowing his eyes at the two guys who were having an animated argument near a split in the chain fence.

"Shawn Spencer, born February 1979," Sam recited, watching him attempt to dodge his friend and go underneath his arm, but he was yanked back instantly. "His dad was a police detective until he took early retirement, his mother's a psychologist, divorced when he was a teenager. Only child, tested genius IQ, ADD, the works. Runs the Psych Agency with the other guy, Guster." He paused, still unsure what to think. "They've been in the local news a lot in the last year, and almost all of it for solving cases with the PD. That little dance he did in the hall that we saw is his m.o."

"Dance?" Dean raised his eyebrows. "So you don't believe he's psychic."

"I don't know—and I don't think it matters." Sam nodded toward the warehouse again, where Spencer had managed to get around Guster and was going for the building while Guster did a Donald Duck for a moment before slipping through the fence and following him.

"And his partner?"

"Uhh, no, nothing that stands out. He sells pharmaceuticals but has an impeccable record." Sam sighed and got out of the car after Dean, going to the trunk so they could load up. "From what I could tell, they've been friends since childhood, but they're just business partners," Sam added nonchalantly.

Dean glanced at him. "Huh?"

"You asked Lassiter if they were gay," Sam reminded him. "I'm pretty sure not."

"Goody for them," Dean said after a moment. "Why am I supposed to care?"

"Why'd you ask Lassiter?"

"Jesus Sammy, I was trying to keep him from figuring out what we were up to," Dean said, rolling his eyes again. "And he just gave off that vibe, I don't know, maybe it was all the talking about George Clooney. I was really more interested in getting that file before we got caught out, okay?"

"Okay," Sam said, taking his machete and securing it to his belt. He knew Dean could do this for years, if he had them, and right now they had some dumbass civilians to save from themselves, along with the vampires, or demons, or whatever, to clean up. He just wished that, in this last year if nothing else, his brother could be free of his own trappings. "Let's go," he said. Dean slammed the trunk of the car and headed across the street, and Sam followed him.

.

Converging on the warehouse almost in tandem: Shawn and Gus, Lassiter and O'Hara, Sam and Dean.

Shawn and Gus heard a throaty growling as they sneaked along one of the walls inside, and they whirled around to find themselves face-to-face with something that had red eyes and a mouthful long, sharp fangs. They shrieked.

O'Hara yanked open the fire door, Lassiter sliding past her with his gun drawn. For the first time during his career as a detective, it wavered when he saw who—or what—was standing over Spencer. He didn't wait for O'Hara, and knew he didn't have to. They charged.

Sam and Dean hesitated for just a moment, long enough to look at each other incredulously, when they saw the mess of five other people at the far end of the warehouse: the maybe-psychic was cowering on the floor, his partner flat against his back on a nearby wall. In front of the psychic was the tall, skinny detective, his gun pointed into the vampire's face; his partner was between Spencer and Guster, her gun also pointed. Both detectives shouted orders, and the vampire smiled, showing all of its teeth. One second it was grinning its insane leer at Lassiter, and the next, it had moved, grabbing him by the shoulders. Sam and Dean watched in horror as it slammed him against a wall, and then yanked him to the side as O'Hara fired, too slowly. It laughed, a sound that made all of the humans' spines twinge. As O'Hara raised her gun to take aim again, the vampire's wrist was suddenly rubbing a red smear across Lassiter's mouth, and she fired, not missing, but unable to kill or even maim the creature. All of this had happened in just a couple of seconds, but when Sam and Dean saw the vampire's blood, they knew what it meant, and they exchanged a look, gripping their machetes grimly. They ran.

.

_**Reminder **_that this is only the first chapter of the story; the rest can be **found on AO3 (/works/1366021/chapters/2854105). **Check it out if you're interested to know what happens next!


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